Incineration may be answer to waste woes
Maybe it is time for some suitably qualified engineers to compare the long-term costs of landfill development, management and environmental impacts, to that of incineration.
We have had numerous examples of old landfill sites being exposed and decimated by weather events. Many councils are now facing real costs of remediation and containment of former sites. Landfill sites produce methane gas and leach all sorts of nasties into the surrounds. Many of the plastics which cannot be recycled end up here as well and take forever to break down. Seagulls and rodents love a landfill.
High-temperature incineration of urban waste material is an option worth considering. Modern incinerators use high-tech scrubbers to capture toxic discharges and burn so hot, they are generally smoke free and leave very little ash residue.
What is more environmentally friendly and cost-effective? Burning a piece of non-recyclable material and recovering most of the toxins, or burying the same material in a landfill? Someone smarter than me must have calculated the comparative impact.
Another benefit would be that the development and management of the incineration and generation facility would be the responsibility of a private contractor. They will generate income from the electricity that is produced as a byproduct. Ratepayers would not be burdened with the $146m cost of developing and managing Smooth Hill.
It is about time alternatives to this historical dumping strategy were considered with some scientific vigour.
Richard Scott
Cromwell
Like a rolling stone
Let's hope that Dunedin Venues Management chief executive Mr Davies shoots for the stars and has a go at securing the Rolling Stones to play at Dunedin next summer.
What a coup they would be. If trains were run from Blenheim and Invercargill to Dunedin they would be packed, not to mention the stadium.
Good luck Mr Davies.
Charlie Wilson
Dunedin
Tourism’s golden egg
When talking about the future these days we have to put aside the warnings of science and maths when it comes to speculation on the subject of prosperity and try and get to what everyone needs and not just a lucky few.
Milford Sound is a place that in many ways has reached its full potential as far as prosperity goes but it could be a lot better if we lived in a rational world with rational ‘‘small g’’ government.
We really need to treat the nation’s public places better than we do as they are part of the nation’s identity and that should be done by the Department of Conservation - which is really a weird name as it’s job is still the National Park Service and Crown lands management not literally ‘‘conservation’’.
It should have a tourism department as well as a biodiversity department for conservation projects and the money from one should help fund the conservation.
Milford Sound has been one big fat golden egg in a somewhat fragile basket and I am not for the life of me seeing how private enterprise has anywhere near the power of the state to improve the situation for the citizens of this country.
Aaron Nicholson
Manapouri
Player interest
I was interested to read the nostalgic letter by M. George (ODT 20.1.23) regarding the Samoana rugby league team. In that period, early ’60s to mid-’70s, there were many fine clubs also playing, from and including Oamaru to Balclutha and west to Cromwell, a total of more than 11. Some players even went on to rep honours. A pity the player interest is no longer there.
Don Millar
St Kilda
Ewan Fordyce - fossil finder and barbecuer
Having read the obituary to Prof Ewan Fordyce (ODT 20.1.24) very little was written on the assistance he gave to undergraduate students.
As one of these former students, he had the ability to get down to the intellectual level of someone very new in learning the intricacies of geological paleontology. On student field trips we were taken to places I am sure that many other New Zealanders would never visit in their lifetime. Coastal cliffs, inland limestone cliffs, dry river beds, now dried-up creek beds, into caves, rock quarries, road cuttings etc, looking for fossils; both trace and actual.
Ewan’s field trips at the time I was doing them had already become a bit legendary. Students, Ewan and a few other university geology staff would cover a lot of ground when looking for fossils.
Sometimes the accommodation was quite basic, but Ewan’s piece de resistance - outside of looking for fossils - on these trips was his barbecue cooking skills. I never heard of a student that was not complimentary of this skill. Ewan made sure everyone was well fed.
Would it now be appropriate for the Otago University Geology Museum be named after Ewan Fordyce?
John Neilson
Ravensbourne
Pedestrian pays
I’m disappointed by Tony Vink’s (ODT 11.1.24) timidity of vision. Along with cyclists there is another group of freeloaders sponging off the largesse of the driving public - pedestrians.
A user-pays model must be extended to include footpath user charges and public seating fees. Mandatory pedestrian licensing and proficiency testing is also required.
After all, how many times have most of us had to do that awkward side-to-side shuffle dance because ‘‘stick to the left’’ seems to be too challenging for some walkers?
Julian Cox
Opoho
Danger and unrest require humility
What a surprisingly excellent editorial that the Otago Daily Times has published today (24.1.24) on practical solutions to litter, rubbish and waste.
Not to mention smog and pollution when cars and motor vehicles crashes cause one million deaths per annum, and 20-50 million more suffer long-term injuries. In 2020, a billion face-coverings entered our oceans as a result of the new illness we have all been divided over. This adds to the already huge 4-12 million tonnes of plastic going into our oceans and sewage systems at pre-Covid levels.
If the world does not address these issues with more awareness we are only going to make the earth, ourselves and other species in more danger, with similar unrest and a lack of problem solving that we are all doing now.
We need to be humble though as we all drop things without meaning to do so.
Thomas McAlpine
North East Valley
Moral authority
I can’t help questioning the moral authority of the West, the hypocrisy and double standards of the world’s most powerful nations, and particularly their unwillingness to hold Israel to account for its extreme punishment of all Palestinian people.
I never imagined that New Zealand would ditch its independent foreign policy to join these nations.
The latest decision to join the US-led multinational operation to ‘‘protect merchant ships from Houthi rebels’’ is to be deplored. Minister Collins’ statement that this operation in the Suez Canal has nothing to do with the war in Gaza is either naive or very dishonest.
Why risk inflaming tensions in the Middle East instead of fighting for peace, however complex the issues? Where to from here, New Zealand?
Catharine McGrath
Wakari
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
